The company urges connection to its communities, with dedicated sponsorship of community building and a lot of cause-related marketing. They’ve launched the Davidson Institute to help Australians learn about the importance of savings from an early age and to combat financial stress related societal problems like homelessness.

This year Westpac offers exceptional transparency with a series of factpacks in excel format (or PDF) which are downloadable and contain heaps of data covering everything at Group level and at individual bank-brand level, from details of community investment to Code of Conduct compliant suppliers to CO2e emissions per employee and per customer, amount of copying paper per employee, recycling rates of individual materials, Scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon emissions and much, much more. Most data is for 2 years (2010-2011) but some is for three years and some for longer. Making this data available in excel format means that the reader can play around with the numbers and make graphs and charts, if so inclined. I find this bold, trust-building and entirely inviting credibility. The downside of this approach, of course, is that the data is bunched together with no narrative, so you have to work out the trends for yourself. Having said this, everywhere I looked, Westpac’s performance seems to be getting better, so perhaps these numbers really do speak for themselves.

This level of transparency is at the leading edge of the financial industry, and emulates sustainability reporting by companies in more extractive and greenhouse gas intensive industries. It gave WestPac the highest sustainability ranking among banks by Dow Jones, and has led the company to an estimated 81% employee engagement. It also boasts 37.5% women in positions of leadership, high for the male-dominated banking industry.

Comments

Hey Scott,
Bendigo Bank (allied with Bank of Sth Australia) started this quite a number of years ago. They are actually more user friendly too – no charges if you understand how to use your account. Have had “Green” innovations way before Westpac. Though, if Westpac is a “dinosaur” in the banking world then this is a positive sign.